Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Frosted Roses

It was 28 degrees at 8:30 a.m. in my woodlands area of California yesterday morning. Ice was thick. I had heat in the house, thank God. Hot water, too. I enjoyed the rose buds frosted over; imagine, roses in December.

I'm on a magazine deadline this week, and researching like a mad dog, writing like a person typing with a pencil. Finished a piece on greenhouse gases and personal choices in the afternoon. Thank God Copenhagen is in session and the EPA made its announcement about, surprise, carbon dioxide is harmful to Americans (in the very least), because I had been searching for story lead, and there it was in the morning paper.

Fighting stress is an exhausting business. It can be fought, though, with remembering to breathe, remembering to pray, remembering just to focus on the next indicated thing. My friend didn't want to stay sober, but I did all I humanly could to reach out and remind her of my love and her choices. The rest is in the hands of Man Who Made the Water, as the old song says.

My radio debut of last week has been archived. The topic was "Ears on Art: the Gift of Art." The link here takes you to the local NPR station's archived program. It takes a few moments to download, but I'm five minutes into it, the second reader, and the first is a woman friend of mine with a lovely poetic voice. The KCBX radio link: http://kcbx.org/mp3archive/eoa091202.mp3

My reading is of the experience of writing poetry while in the psychiatric ward being treated for major depression. It was a gift to find the poetry within me at that time especially.

One of the poems I read is this:

The Visitor

When you came to me in the mental wardyou appeared like an angel to tell meI was pregnant with possibilities.Redemption was mine at that momentwhen a power greater than you and Iflowed like a spark of creation throughyour fingertip pressed against my own.In that hallowed instant I ceasedto be wretched and became a womanripe with life.

I love this poem. I haven't had a chance to listen to your broadcast yet. If this makes any sense, I'm saving it like a treat that I'll give myself when I can sit down with a good cup of coffee and time to savor.

oh yeah, so sweet. I love this poem, it gave me goosebumps when I heard it on the radio and I am glad I can re-read it. Thank you for the compliment as well. I totally agree with the breath and meditation. I cannot keep breathing metaphors out of my poetry. Your voice is strong and sensuous, in a live reading!

This is such synchronicity, because I was coming today just to tell you how much I enjoyed listening to your work on Saturday evening. Door bells and telephones ring, people need, and life sometimes interrupts the important things I want to do, so please excuse my slowness in coming to tell you how much I love both poems. I was so touched.

First of all, you have an awesome reading voice! I didn't hear any nervousness at all. It was very clear, strong, and beautiful.

"The Visitor" is excellent and ties in wonderfully with the theme, "a gift of art." I will always look at Michelangelo's painting in a new light now. I can feel the love flowing from the visitor into the narrator.

"Your Name Is Good" touched me on so many different levels. I won't go on and on here, because I feel like a gushing idiot again...ha! If you have a chance, I'd love to tell you what I mean off the air. Suffice it to say that I love both poems. If anyone hasn't listened, it's a beautiful experience.

I just read your poem and it has left me tingling and with goose bumps. It is a perfect "O", a circle traced with a finger in the sand. The circle contains everything you will ever need to know. It is so beautiful. Thank you. My two year old and four year old have been hard work today and this evening I am sitting in the eye of a storm. I said to my husband I don't feel like I am coping with everything. Thank you for this perfect poem arriving at the perfect moment.

Ya,the whole fighting stress thing is just creates more stress and harm on to our bodies.It's easy to get swooped up in - but daily reminders in our readings and writing keep us centered I think.Mediations of the inner self kind.And our blogging can help stress too sometimes ;)

I really respect that poem.Telling and empowering to any of us who have had to accept we are powerless and to truly let go and embrace new possibilites.

Albert Einstein Quotes

About Me

I'm a poet, gardener, and freelance writer who lives in California by the coast, in a small town surrounded by pastures, woods, and vineyards. Other things I am: recovering LA magazine editor and recovering alcoholic, wife of a tolerant man, mom to two beautiful daughters, mistress of beagles and cats, lover of mysteries and photography, a survivor of suicide, depression, addiction, and sundry minor ailments. I write for a living and write poetry for life.

Who Are You?

Here's a free psychology-based personality test, thorough and intriguing, developed by some creative academic types. The test is anonymous and it doesn't result in spam flooding your inbox. Nobody's paying me to tell you about it. They don't even know I'm telling you about it. In fact, this message will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

Without Fail

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.” (Art Linkletter)

No Comment

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. (John W. Gardner)

Survival Tip #19

My strength lies solely in my tenacity. (Louis Pasteur)

I'm a recovering Lutheran

"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road." (Martin Luther)

A Philosophy of Life

“It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.” Samuel Johnson

Go Figga

Visitors are beautiful people.

My AA Recovery Story

I got sober in 1990 after a life of drug and alcohol addiction, and I had 15 wonderful years. Then I moved and left my homegroup behind. I didn't replace my sponsor, who had died. I didn't work with newcomers, and I went to only one meeting a week. Ultimately, I didn't stay sober. I experienced that strange mental twist, and I picked up. But I jumped back into the program, and my life has continually gotten better. I'm married to a man with 23 years of sobriety, and we work our program at home. AA is the hub the wheel of my life revolves around. I've been able to explore a creative side of my personality that once lived only under the influence of drugs. I have perfect moments during each of my precious days. We are none of us invulnerable to that strange mental twist that precedes the first drink, and all that stands between us and the drink is our constant thought of others. My prayer these days is: God, do your will in and through me today. If I can be an inspiration to others, then my life is rich. God bless you all.

Rosebud on Ice

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. (Anne Bradstreet)